Using Item Mapping to Create Communities in An Institutional Repository: The Washington State University Experience Kay Vyhnanek Scholarly Communication Librarian Washington State University Rising to Digital Challenges: Best Practices Exchange 2008 Helena MT May 21-23, 2008
What’s In Store A Little Background info on Research Exchange DSpace software – why we chose it Policy questions What goes in it (with any luck) How to establish communities What Is Item Mapping What it looks like What it does Why Map Items? What Are The Benefits
Background Info Why We Chose Dspace Systems Librarian reviewed available software and made recommendation Had backing of MIT and Hewlett Packard Expected it to handle the types of material we intended to include
More Background Policy Questions What goes in it Electronic dissertations and theses Anything we can get our hands on! (WSU research, that is) How to establish communities What structure to use How best to reflect WSU research
What is Item Mapping?
What Item Mapping Does
Why Map Items? Provides more exposure for individual items within Research Exchange Creates a more robust set of communities and collections
The Difference It Makes: Without Mapping Communities in Research Exchange Choose a community to browse its collections. Department of Anthropology [13] Department of English [1] Electronic Dissertations and Theses [549] Electronic Journals [355] Graduate School [33] Intercollegiate College of Nursing [5] International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists [3] Libraries [92] Sustainability Initiative [2] WSU Academic Showcase Poster Session [19] WSU Administration [1] WSU Arboretum Committee [1]
On the Other Hand -- When Mapping Is Used https://research.wsulibs.wsu.edu:8443/dspace/
Benefits Creates communities and collections that are representative of the departments and other units on campus Makes the Research Exchange more viable as far as generating items for inclusion Provides a basis on which to grow
Questions? Comments? Kay Vyhnanek kayv@wsu.edu